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1.3.5-Doeskin-pantaloons
Brick!Club 1.3.5: At Bombarda’s Or, In Which Parisians have Epic Hair So this chapter is ninety percent an excuse for Hugo to tell you exactly how great the people of Paris are. And let me tell you, they are spectacularly awesome. I am quite happy to get into Hugo’s dramatic language with the best of them (“…make him sing the Marseillaise, and he will free the world.” What can I say? I’m a sucker for melodrama. And for freeing the world.) but this section actually makes me feel quite awkward. From what I remember reading last semester in a subject I took on the French Revolution, opinions like Hugo’s re Parisians were pretty standard back in the day. I read one man (and I can’t find his writing, dammit) who I think was from London, and wrote about how the people of Paris would riot at the drop of the hat, and had epic rage-hair, and how Londoners were all around much more chilled. At the same time, however, we were reading a lot of readings that talked about how Frenchmen were very hard working, and by comparison, Africans needed to be whipped in order to make sure they worked. So basically, the first thing I think of reading Hugo’s rant about how great Parisians are is that nationalism (or, in this case…. what do you call it? Nationalism, but just for your city) basically equals some form of racism. If Parisians are so great, what are you saying for all those people chilling in the rest of France. Not up to scratch? No rage-hair for them? It helps a bit that Hugo told us a few chapters ago that to be a student was to be Parisian, so if you go to university, you too can acquire rage-hair, but all the same… This whole “The Parisian is to the Frenchman what the Athenian was to the Greek” lark makes me a bit uncomfortable. Two other thoughts, more regarding translation: #Hapgood translates “Ce sont tous petits hommes,” as “These are very pretty men,” I don’t speak French, but I’m trying. Is ‘pretty’ a decent translation for ‘petit’? Because Hapgood sounds a lot more like the Chief of Police thinks that Parisians are effeminate, and kind of pathetic, and I’m not sure that that’s what Hugo was going for. #Isn’t it wonderful that when the English has to say “he tears up the pavements,” French just has “il dépave”? They have a snappy noun for tearing up pavements! I suppose they might need one… Commentary Pilferingapples It’s a very specific set of circumstances that leave a culture with the verb “he tears up the pavements”. Roadwork in Paris must have been a constant ongoing battle of repair against riots. For all your totally justified unease with city-based…uh..cosmopolism? I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN but I don’t know the right word either— I am mostly reblogging this for the discussion of Rage Hair. Oh, hair jokes. One day you shall fill my entire blog. Doeskin-pantaloons (reply to Pilferingapples) To fill your entire blog, you say? I’m hair to help! (I understand if you never want to reblog anything I post ever again.)